‘WTF!’ Category

After several rejections by local galleries here, Headache Stencil presents his 2nd solo show in Bangkok “Thailand Casino”. As audacious and provocative as always, Headache Stencil creates a new installation art to express his personal notions on the ever delayed and broken promises stories of Thailand’s election in 2019 after the junta took over Thailand since 2014. The artist aims to be an agent of changes by creating the visuals through his understanding on the most current and debatable issue in our today society.

Thailand Casino exhibition aims to encourage the viewers to be more courageous and respond provocatively to the systems and structures of control by the authorities on this latest election.

Headache Stencil is a pseudonymous Thailand-born street artist and political activist. Dubbed Thailand’s version of the British graffiti artist Banksy, Headache catapulted to fame in January 2018 with his graffiti of the Thai junta No.2 Prawit Wongsuwan’s face inside an alarm clock, a jab at the lack of financial transparency by the generals, who was struggling to explain his collection of undeclared luxury watches. In March 2018, he was in the spotlight for his graffiti of a black panther crying tears of blood, a reference to the case of a Thai construction magnate who was later charged with poaching one of the protected cats during an illegal safari hunt in a national park. In September 2018, he depicted Thai junta chief Prayut Chan-o-cha as "a lucky cat" with a paw raised to rake in money.

His nickname "Headache" alludes to the pain he hopes to inflict on the mighty.

The Embassy of Portugal in Thailand, the Portuguese Cultural Center in Bangkok in partnership with WTF Gallery are delighted to invite you to the solo show “More Or Less“ by MAISMENOS (Miguel Januário) at WTF Gallery. The opening reception will be held on Friday 14 December 2018, 7pm at WTF Gallery.

The concept of art “intervention” suggests breaking down the fixed and known into particles of the unknown from which a new public consciousness may emerge. Grass-roots interaction exploits the city as site and medium for critique. Art interventions in urban spaces are of many kinds, which collectively symbolize how many different ways there are of understanding, visualizing and materializing the issues of society. They are all intended as agents of change that operate or exist to subvert, resist and continually destabilize the tangible, fixed and known perceptions of public spaces.

In Thailand, art intervention is a relatively new phenomenon, often carried out clandestinely by shadowy collectives who respond provocatively and fleetingly with micro-actions to the systems and structures of control and knowledge, for example with the street stencil works of Black Panther and Watch using the faces of Thailand’s leaders to subject them to often comical critiques.

More or Less exhibition showcases MAISMENOS//MIGUEL Januário’s works to Thai audiences to show up remarkable parallels in the practices of Thai and Portuguese street artists and the obstacles they resist: constraint of freedom of media, nationalism, the over-exercise of authority and the fragility of democracy. The artist intends to showcase the manifestations of art intervention in urban spaces between the two countries.

±MaisMenos± is a project by Portuguese visual artist and graphic designer Miguel Januário (b. 1981) that began as an academic thesis in 2005 and later took on a life of its own. It offers a critical reflection rather than a model of political, social and economic organisation inherent to contemporary urban societies. Conducting a clinical dissection of reality that plays with the dualities intrinsic to the Western Ideological edifice, the project’s programmatic expression is reduced to the greatest possible simplicity and seemingly mutually exclusive opposites: more/less, positive/negative, black/white.

Under the ±MaisMenos± banner, Januário has been producing thought-provoking, cutting-edge work both indoors and outdoors in a variety of media – from video to sculptural installations, from painting to performance. Besides numerous illegal public art intervention in several countries, the project has also been showcased in solemn solo and group exhibitions in various institutional contexts, including at Vera Cortes Gallery (Lisbon, 2010), MACE-Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Elvas (Elvas, 2011,2014), Underdogs Gallery (Lisbon, 2013,2014,2015), Caixa Cultural (Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Brasilia, 2014), Museu do Coa (Vila Nova de Foz Coa, 2015), Centro de Arte Contemporanea Graga Morais (Braganga, 2015), MUDE-Museu do Design e da Moda (Lisbon, 2016), MACRO-Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma (Rome, 2016), and leading art festivals and events such as Walk &amp; Talk Festival (Sao Miguel, Azores, 2011), Guimaraes European Capital of Culture (Guimaraes, 2012), La Tour Paris13 (Paris, 2013), Nuart Festival (Stavanger, 2014), and Forgotten Project (Rome, 2016). ±MaisMemos± has also been the subject of two TED talks, at TEDxLuanda (Luanda, 2014) and TEDxPorto (Porto, 2015), and other public lectures. The project is also the focus of Miguel Januário’s ongoing PhD research at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto.

The contemporary landscape is constantly changing and being re-defined. As towns and cities become gentrified it increases displacement and heightens a sense of isolation in the population. As long as a nation can portray a happy and glittering image while glitches in its society remain concealed, on surface all seems to be in control.

In Shifts, Varsha Nair presents her own, and collaborative and curated works that include mixed media, multimedia, and a site-specific installation, spanning from 2000 until the present. Like layered palimpsests, the video projections, drawings and photographs address the illusive “/” space, the space in-between that bridges and separates, acting as a divider but simultaneously as a connecting point. Tracing flux, loss and uncertainty, the works presented here deconstruct, reconstruct and map different realities both tangible and abstract, private and communal.

Explored also is the bond between built spaces and memory of places that once were significant to people inhabiting them but now seem ghostly, covered up or completely erased and forgotten, becoming blind spots in contemporary society. Impermanence, ephemerality, and transience are evoked to tell stories, bringing places of the past into the present to remind and reclaim some of their previous integrity and keep them visible.

Varsha Nair was born in Kampala, Uganda, and studied at Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayaji Rao University, Baroda, India. Inviting multidisciplinary collaborations, her work encompasses various approaches and genres including making, writing, and organising projects, including for Womanifesto in Thailand. Varsha has lived in Thailand since 1995 and exhibited internationally including at About Cafe/Studio, Chulalongkorn Art Centre, BACC, Khoj (New Delhi), Tate Modern (London), HKW (Berlin), Art in General (New York), Lodypop (Basel).

She is currently invited by Lucerne School of Art to mentor Masters students and set up the Masters Dialogue Program.

Shinya Akutagawa has created an elevator as a ‘non-place’ (‘Utopia’ in Greek language) with Trai Phum (Three Worlds in Thai language) as ‘Exceptional Places’ (out of modernity) as an interactive installation. His work raises the question—how can we see culture, from which perspective should the arts be shown regardless of the nationality?

The installation presents non-places (elevator, hyper-modernity or utopia) where the audience is expected to see exceptional places (the idea of Trai Phum) from the non-places.

Three Worlds of King Ruang (Trai Phum) written in 14th century is the first truly literary work by a Thai author. It is considered essential for considering the identity and culture of Thailand. While the conception of ‘world’ within the book doesn’t correspond to modern science, its philosophy will amaze contemporary thinkers. Similar to meditation practitioners who reach the stage of ‘all perception and non-perception’ or ‘nothingness,’ there is still a realm above and beyond this that cannot be described because those who reach Nibb?na do not return to tell us.

Modern cartography gave shape to Thailand since the 15th century, influencing not only geography but also Thai people’s identity as nation state. Yet this geography of modernity still could not swallow and digest the mysteries of ancient maps of Ayutthaya showing the mythical Golden mountain, Trai Phum.

The Elevator is one of the symbols of hyper-modernity located everywhere. In urban life, its function ‘must’ be perfect. As functionality is the ultimate requirement for the urban condition, there is no cultural aspect if an elevator is out of order or operates in a unique manner. However, if an audience is on a ‘symbolic’ elevator, it can be a device for rethinking contemporary society. Inside an elevator is a homogenized ‘non-place’ where one spends significant time regardless of social status. At the same time, on the elevator, passengers who must have their respective ‘culture’ stay with others temporarily, all of them deprived of their cultural identity.

“Pondan under the Pondok’ is a photography series based on my anthropological field research trying to understand queerness in the Muslim society of Thailand’s Deep South, where LGBT issues are a very sensitive topic to discuss and gay people often cannot reveal their sexual identity. This series is mainly about the self and representation of being queer amidst Islamic fundamentalism. The photographs were taken during Samak’s field research in 2017.

As he grew up and studied in an Islamic school (pondok), Samak was often bullied as a ‘pondan’ (in Melayu) or ‘kratoey’ (in Thai), which are more or less derogatory terms for gay or transsexual people. Samak had a close friend called Walad who suffered the same everyday abuse but was much braver in expressing his gay identity, sometimes cross-dressing when we went to bars. Yet his parents were very devout Muslims, and as long as Walad obeyed them in certain things he was free to be he wanted. He prayed five times a day, he wore Arabic dress to the mosque, and then he changed into his going-out clothes with high-heeled boots and a leopard-print miniskirt.

People at school were forever telling them that because of their aberrations God would never accept their prayers. But they also came to their rooms for sex at night. This gave him the idea for a Muslim Prayer Book that took gay Muslims as the model for learning how to pray for other people to respect us as equals and leave the judging to God.

This also formed the basis for his field research in the Deep South Thailand in early 2017 to develop my Ph.D. proposal on homosexuality in Islam. To do that, he taught myself photography, making a first series that tried to understand young gay students, gradually winning their trust so they would allow me to capture their real selves.

Samak’s photography also focuses on the practice of many male Muslim students of “len pheuan”, a term signifying same-sex sexual activities among their peers that they do not perceive as gay. In this way they create a sense of “brotherhood” without ostensibly violating religious precepts. Young Muslim men in his view interpret religious practices on bodily principles to make them feel less guilty about their sexual desire. The photos reflect this ambiguous definition of male same-sex relationships in the paradigm of Islamic schooling.

This constructed “bromance” highlights the fluidity of sexuality and its diverse dynamics. This photograph employ a reflexive ethnographic approach, drawing on his own experience from when he was twelve years old to approach sensitive questions of Muslim homosexuality through the experiences of rebellion, atonement, hidden desire and losing the self in religious discourse and textual interpretation focused on concepts of the body and sexuality in the Qur’an and Islamic morality. The photos, therefore, aim to understand socio-cultural and sexual relations by opening a space for gay Muslim voices that have long been hidden and blanked out by Islamic fundamentalism in Thailand.

Samak Kosem

Born 1984, Bangkok, Thailand

Samak Kosem works in the field of visual anthropology and his recent research in the Deep South focuses on Muslim culture and and nonhuman subjects. He uses photography and art ethnography as a methodology to reflect aspects of his studies. Samak is interested in queer studies, focusing on homosexuality in Islam to understand the limits of gender perspective in the region. He holds a BS and MA in cultural anthropology from Chiang Mai University. Most of his work has been published in books and academic journals.

Queer Muslim will be Samak’s first solo photography exhibition. His other set or works are recently selected to participate in the first Bangkok Art Biennale 2018 in October 2018.

WTF Gallery in Partnership with Greenpeace South East Asia and co-ordinated by Community Art Project are delighted to invite you to a group exhibition “Coal: The dirty business, cleansing through art and performance” at WTF Gallery and Café on Friday 9 June 2018.

(All performances will be spontaneous and occur all over WTF cafe and gallery throughout the night without fixed programme)

The exhibition is co-ordinated by the Community Art Project after a group of seven artists and photographers who came together last year, uresearching materials and information in Krabi from locals and activists who oppose the construction of the coal-fired power plant projects in Krabi and Thepa by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT).

Research has shown that the areas where EGAT intends to build the plant and the route of coal transport from Indonesia lie at the heart of the southern Andaman sea’s marine ecosystem. Affected areas cover the provinces of Ranong, Nakorn Srithammarat, Phang Nga, Krabi, Trang, Satun as well as most of the islands in the Andaman sea including Malaysia’s Langawi.

The marine ecosystem consists of the basic constituents of saltwater habitats like tidal flats, mangroves, sea grass, coral, and rock formations that provide food and shelter for one of the world’s highest concentrations of marine diversity for over 360 species of fish and sea life. The exhibition will focus on the lives of local villagers from Urak Lawoi who will feel the most negative impact of the coal-fired power plant on their economy and culture — not to mention the locals’ belief in the sanctity of the land which may be entirely destroyed.

The two coal-fired power plant projects in Thepa and Krabi have met with stiff resistance from locals and NGOs, who say it will threaten the environment and ruin their livelihood, which depends largely on fishing in the case of Thepa and on tourism in the case of Krabi. As a result, the Ministry of Energy has decided to put construction on hold for three years pending additional environmental and health impact assessment. However, despite this small victory, the local communities and NGOs feel this is merely an attempt to stall the inevitable as the j of the project still yield great political power. The artists therefore believe it is vital to continue raising awareness and keep the debate alive.

From the field research by the artists and their experiences in previous art community projects, they have concluded that the most important factor for success in battling the authorities is for locals to protect themselves from being exploited by politicians and capitalism by standing united. The local communities and their leaders must remain impregnable to external stakeholders and arm themselves with knowledge and understanding of the long-term impact.

Artwork in this exhibition includes video, installation, painting, photography, poetry, mixed media and live performance.

About the artists

Since the political turmoil against the government of Thaksin Shinawatra led to the 2006 coup, contemporary art in Thailand had seen a rise in politically charged work. After the 2014 coup, however, a number of art and cultural professionals have struggled with self-censorship, the junta ban on cultural activities and a climate of fear.

After the 2014 coup Thailand’s art scene changed its function dramatically due to self-censorship. Polarization in Thailand raised tensions within the art world as much as in any other social sectors. But that has also added a healthy debate and much-needed criticism in and of Thai art.

The exhibition is a project, co-ordinated by Community Art Project, involving seven Thai artists/activists. Some of them were pioneers in raising awareness of pressing political and social issues in Thailand. Group members became known for their radical work in various media and collaborations with other socially engaged artists. Using performance art, poetry, installation, mixed media, literature, VDO and photography, they were identified with the changes in society since the 1970s, when several of them formed associations including Asiatopia. Some of them took part in rallies and called for public monuments to the uprisings against dictatorship and brought social and political issues into the realm of art.

The social and advocacy project they have highlighted include environmental issues, the rights of sex workers, capitalism, cultural change, the impact of development and urbanisation on indigenous and minority groups, corruption and many other issues.

In physics, the sound intensity level reaches 85 decibels (dB) or stronger can cause a permanent damage to auditory system. Though it may seem the quieter the sound, the longer you can listen to without causing any hazard; hearing duration is nevertheless one important factor contributing to such derogation. Hence, exposure to any common sounds for a long period of time can cause permanent hearing loss, for some common sounds may be louder than we realize.

85-140 dB art exhibition presents contemporary sound and media installation works about imaginary silence, to explore the concept of how vibration-induced energy travels through the transmission medium to the brain in terms of both physiology and psychology, and possibly be restricted or tackled from various forms of exposure, emission and communication in each individual or society. The works have been intentionally selected as a challenge upon the ability to break free from these fetters inhibit and impair our ability to access, perceive, understand, analyze, investigate, question, suspect, or even differentiate between reality and illusion around us.

The work by Albrecht Pischel brings the audience to a state of delusion between hearing and visual perception. It also takes us to interrogate upon the outcome of surveillance system operation, which creates restriction in everyday life that visualization alone cannot properly represent.

Arnont Nongyao deliberately presents a space of variation occurred through time via his experiments with intervention in the quality of audio transmission. Such disturbance results in new dimension of hearing. But each receiver can perceive the details of sound wave and frequency with different sense.

While the painting of Paphonsak La-or implies between hearing limitation and result of voicing the taboo, through the overlap between past and present as well as interaction of people living in different place and status. But, they try to utter something conjointly on the virtual world.

The work by Pisitakun Kuntalang takes us across the trap of our complicated and fatigued perception of reality into the virtual world he’s experienced, to query the sense of existence, exiting and fleeing strategy from a society full of suppression. Discovering space within the senses may help us move on.

The interesting thing about the work by Sompot Chidgasornpongse is the familiar image we’ve seen everyday for a long time. The music Gymnopédies No.1 the artist uses in the work also has repeated melodies, seeming to deliberately create familiarity upon human senses and give rise to some value.

** 85-140 dB is part of a research and archive based exhibition project [R]Ejecting Mantra. **

Two men look out through the same bars : one sees the mud, and one the stars #2 is coming to our 5/6 show with Viriya Chotpanyavisut (+ Tanatchai Bandasak). The opening reception is on Saturday 17 February 2018, 6 pm.

Viriya Chotpanyavisutis the one of our 6 artists selected for the exposed : up-and-coming artists project of the Art Centre, Silpakorn University. In this exhibition, he invited an emarging artist - Tanatchai Bandasak to showcase together. Exposed : up-and-coming artists project aim at supporting young emerging artists whose works show interesting perspective towards social issues.

(Please follow up the exhibitions by all 6 artists at FB : Art Centre Silpakorn University)

“King is the dignity of the state.” It is the truth that we cannot deny, Senobia. The King is highly esteemed for several generations, therefore to obliterate that profound perception is not simple. Sri Ayudhya

In the reign of King Vajiravudh in 1912 (130 RE), soldiers and intellectuals plotted a plan for constitutional monarchy and establish democracy. The plan was leaked and the plotters were arrested. The coup of these young military officers challenged King Vajiravudh’s supremacy. In return, King Vajiravudh wrote a theatrical play called “Chuay Amnat” (to seize power) which was firstly shown on stage in 1923. The core idea of this play is to cultivate military officers and Thai people to be loyal to the monarchy. King Vajiravudh used the theatrical plays as a medium to communicate His Majesty’s initiations and political policies. Particularly, “Loyal to the Monarchy” is the focal point all through his reign. – Nutdanai Jitbunjong

BRANDNEW 2017 TALK and Opening Reception:

Bangkok University Gallery (BUG) is pleased to invite you to the BRANDNEW 2017 art project. The project aims to give opportunity to active young artist to improve, learn and develop their works without limit qualifications on education, age and institution. The project has passed the first 12 years resulting in many art institutions and galleries network, the guest curators and young artists who establish themselves and create quality works in international level. This 12th BRANDNEW art project, the guest curator still has full right and freedom to select the works without open call.

This year, BRANDNEW 2017 honorably invites Haymann Oo; curator and assistant director of New Zero Art Space, from Yangon, Myanmar. She works on community art project, art exhibition, art activity and art education. Her focus is on art education and collaboration between artist and audience. Haymann is a writer and art critic for New Waves Art and Literature Magazine since 2014. Currently, she has an important role to initiate international collaboration for Burmese artists who have skill in abstract art and contemporary art. As a result, there are 6 “new” deserving artists for the BRANDNEW 2017 art project.